The present invention relates in general to a truck sports rack and, more particularly, to a truck sports rack that can be dissembled in pieces for shipment and quickly reassembled for such that it may be mounted on a truck.
Various types of truck racks have been developed for protecting goods or cargo carried on a truck bed of a truck. Conventional truck racks are either permanently mounted on a bed rail of a pickup truck or removably mounted on the truck using complex mounting hardware. For example, in published U.S. patent application No. 2003/0164621, U.S. Pat. No. 6,347,731, U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,782, racks disclosed therein each require specialized mounting mechanisms that comprise several elements for mounting the rack to the bed rail of a pickup truck. Unfortunately, none of these racks are easily mountable due to the relatively large number of mounting components and the large number of fasteners to interconnect such mounting components. In addition, most of these racks are constructed of relatively heavy bar, tubing or frame members which increases the difficulty in mounting and demounting the rack from the truck. Furthermore, the overall weight of such racks may have an adverse effect on handling of the truck on which it is mounted.
In addition, many prior art truck racks are provided as a unitary structure of welded construction. Such truck racks suffer from several deficiencies that detract from their overall utility. For example, truck racks that are provided as a welded construction result in a relatively large structure. Unfortunately, such truck racks must be provided in a relatively large variety of sizes in order to accommodate the wide variety of truck bed geometries that are available from the various truck manufacturers. In addition, the cost of shipping such truck racks from the manufacturer to retailers is relatively high due to the bulkiness of such truck racks. Furthermore, the cost of storing the truck racks and displaying the truck racks is also relatively large due to the large amount of space required. Such costs are ultimately passed on to the purchaser.
As can be seen, there exists a need in the art for a sports truck rack that may be assembled from a set of components such that the sports truck rack may be shipped in pieces and re-assembled by the ultimate purchaser. Also, there exists a need in the art for a sports truck rack that is easily adaptable for mounting to a wide variety of truck beds of varying geometry. In addition, there exists a need in the art for a truck sports rack that can be readily mounted to a wide variety of pickup trucks using only a few types of mounting mechanisms. Furthermore, there exists a need in the art for a truck sports rack that is lightweight and strong such that minimal effort is required to mount and demount the rack while the rack can support heavy weight. Finally, there exists a need in the art for a truck sports rack that is of simple construction with a relatively small number of components such that the overall cost of the truck sports rack may be minimized.